“Enlargement is no longer a dream,” said the European Council chief at the Bled Strategic Forum last year. “I believe we must be ready — on both sides — by 2030 to enlarge.” 

The European Commission‘s subsequent enlargement package for the year, unveiled last November, acknowledged the geopolitical imperatives driving the need for new EU members. This was largely driven by the war in Ukraine, escalating tensions in the Middle East, and the potential of a new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Lachin corridor. In response, the EU is looking towards the Western Balkans to secure its periphery, an area where it still retains some operational leverage. That doesn’t come without its own set of challenges, however. The EU is forced to contend with diminishing support in the region, largely attributed to the drawn-out accession process and prevailing economic malaise.

These circumstances put the EU under considerable pressure to hasten its plans. Measures that kicked off with the commencement of admission talks with Albania and North Macedonia and granting candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022 have now shifted towards a concerted thrust to expand into the region by 2030.

For two decades, the prolonged Kosovo-Serbia conflict has presented numerous attempts for resolution. Since Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence in 2008, which Serbia didn’t acknowledge, the European Union has been playing referee as of 2010, offering the sweetener of membership as a peacekeeping incentive. The Brussels Agreement, an impactful deal officiated by the EU in 2013, was a significant stride towards improving Serbia-Kosovo relations, with a focus on governance and collaboration matters.

However, according to Michael Emerson, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) specialising in EU enlargement, both countries currently stand at a crossroads. “Serbia and Kosovo rule themselves out for any realistic prospects of accession until and unless they have peacefully normalised their relations,” he states. “The Franco-German paper earlier last year for reconciling the two was a promising opening, and should still have a future, even though the two parties have descended to more hostile relations for the time being.”

The Franco-German proposal aims to facilitate the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, particularly in response to the destabilising effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the Western Balkan region. However, the progress of these diplomatic efforts suffered a setback after a serious incident last September. Gunmen opened fire on Kosovo police, allegedly involving  Milan Radoičić, the former vice-president of the Serbian List party, leading to a temporary halt in negotiations. 

This is further compounded by what Dr. Ana Bojinović Fenko, Chair of International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, also sees as a discernible lack of commitment from the political leadership of both countries to pursue normalisation. “On the contrary, political elites in both states are actively exacerbating tensions, shaping national identities in a manner that is not only exclusionary but, in some instances, overtly antagonistic towards each other.” 

Dr. Bojinović Fenko points out that, considering the relatively underdeveloped state of civil society in both Serbia and Kosovo, the responsibility largely rests with external actors — namely Germany and France — to play a more influential role in bringing the interests of these two states closer together. Despite the positive intentions underlying the efforts to initiate dialogue, she warns that the impact of such initiatives is limited if they are merely bilateral in nature. Advocating for a broader approach, she suggests that “cooperation between these countries must be fostered through the lens of wider European initiatives, engaging various sectors, including civil service, civil society, and economic stakeholders.” 

In her view, this is the only way the European Union can reasonably anticipate a transformation in the internal political climate of Serbia and Kosovo in the coming seven to ten years. She argues that a fundamental shift in mindset is required: moving away from entrenched hostilities to fostering relations akin to those of amicable neighbours. 

“Through this, civil society has the opportunity to fortify its position relative to the political elite to the degree that it could challenge the prevailing ethno-political narrative that defines their current national identity”, she argues. “This would pave the way for the election of a political class that fosters peaceful coexistence and constructive cooperation within the framework of European integration, not only with the broader European community but particularly with neighbouring nations.” 

When it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emerson described it as “still in a state of dysfunctionality.” The country that formed after the signing of the Dayton Accords in 1995 has grown increasingly so, both due to its elaborate and overburdened bureaucracy and the uneven balance between the Federation and Republika Srpska and its secessionist aspirations. “Dodik’s Serb Republic is a polity that has all that the EU would not want to import into its midst,“ notes Emerson. 

Republika Srpska’s refusal to align with EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus, and the conferment of the order of Republika Srpska to Russian President Putin in January 2023 add to the difficulty of absorbing an entity whose relations with Russia are in flagrant opposition to the EU’s foreign policy. 

“This leaves Montenegro, North Macedonia and Albania as more straightforward case,” Emerson suggests. “For them reforms of the enlargement methodology are crucial to dynamise the process of opening and closing chapters and assuring the requisite reforms. The least that could be done would be to switch Council decision making on chapters and clusters a matter for qualified majority voting, for which there is widespread support.” 

The aim of this reform is clear: it seeks to reduce the number of states that can veto proposals. However, its implementation is challenging – achieving unanimity is a difficult task with the EU’s current 27 member states. 

“The Enlargement Package is silent on this issue but does innovate with its interesting proposal of a ‘Growth Plan’, which would offer additional funding conditional on selected steps to align on important elements of the single market and the digital sector,“ Emerson notes. This plan, encompassing a six-billion-euro Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans (2024-27), aims to provide pre-accession benefits, foster economic growth and socio-economic convergence, with payments conditional on the fulfilment of agreed upon reforms. 

The Western Balkan states, as candidates for EU membership, have consistently faced considerable skepticism from some EU members, particularly regarding the inclusion of smaller and politically less stable countries. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this cautious stance was notably echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron. He repeatedly emphasized the necessity of internal EU reform as a prerequisite for considering further enlargement. 

Dr. Bojinović Fenko observes the two need not be mutually exclusive. “France has historically viewed these as separate processes, fostering a belief that one must either focus solely on enlargement or on deepening the EU’s integration.” She goes on to explain that, in the past, France has “prioritised the latter, as it allowed it and like-minded member states to project substantial influence within the EU, aligning the Union’s global stance with its national interests.” However, the addition of new member states introduces a greater degree of complexity in this equation, increasingly casting France in the role of gatekeeping enlargement. 

“The legitimacy of France’s interests within the EU should be recognised,” she adds, “given that since the founding of the EU, Germany has experienced a population increase, leading to increased voting power in the Council of the EU and a greater number of allegiances with like-minded member states.” Additionally, the prospective enlargement into the Western Balkans is likely to further tilt the balance in Germany’s favor, therefore “France is determined on establishing institutional arrangements that would safeguard its influence in the Union.” 

Despite these challenges, there have been efforts to agree on a path of mutual progress. Emerson references a report released last year by a Franco-German working group, titled ‘Sailing on High Seas – Reforming and Enlarging the EU for the 21st Century’ which addresses the critical question of EU reform. “The proposed deepening would involve reducing veto powers in favor of qualified majority voting, potentially implemented during the transition period of Staged Accession.” Yet, Emerson concedes that unanimity on this remains elusive. 

A shift towards qualified majority voting is likely to unfold incrementally, starting with certain foreign policy decisions before expanding to other areas. In the interim, the EU might continue to allow certain exemptions for member states where unanimity is required. To make qualified majority voting more acceptable to member states, the Franco-German report proposes a “sovereignty safety net” to give countries a backstop on issues where a vital national interest is at stake, as well as giving more voting weight to smaller countries in the Council. 

Absent substantial reforms within the European Union and the Western Balkan countries, President Michel’s hopeful outlook could, echoing Emerson, be deemed merely “superficial.” Achieving the ambitious objective of integrating the Western Balkan states into the EU by 2030 seems improbable without significant systemic transformations on both sides. 

Dr. Bojinović Fenko offers an alternative perspective. She notes the EU has historically demonstrated its ability to integrate a large number of new members prior to undertaking institutional reforms, evidenced by the end of the Cold War and the resulting emergence of new nations in Europe. “The initial accession processes began in the early 1990s. However, the necessary institutional adjustments to accommodate an enlarged EU framework were only formalised with the ratification of the Treaty of Nice in 2003, a point at which the accession negotiations with all ten Central and Eastern European countries had already concluded.” 

Reflecting on the two decades since the promise of EU membership was first made to the Western Balkans, Dr. Bojinović Fenko says “it’s high time for the European Union to move beyond the binary choice of whether to enlarge or deepen. Instead, it should concentrate its efforts vigorously on enlargement, while, at the same time, strategise and implement essential reforms to its internal institutional framework.” 

The European Union has charted a course towards expansion, yet the details of how to get there remain elusive. Current discussions about enlargement are as positive as they’ve ever been, with no shortage of enthusiasm among EU policymakers. But, as much as the Western Balkans aspire towards it, the ability of the EU to reach the 2030 enlargement date ultimately presents a litmus test for the bloc as a whole and would demonstrate that Western policies are effective. With the pole of the world order shifting towards Asia, the EU is entering an era of giants, and it will have to prove whether it can adapt and stand as tall as the rest of them. 

If there was a scene that could capture North Macedonia’s travails with EU enlargement, it would be this. Agitated yet determined, the country has been caught in a state of perpetual limbo since it first began its rapproachment with the bloc at the turn of the century.

While President Michel has pledged that the EU will be prepared to take in new members by 2030, the future for the country’s EU aspirations appear more unpredictable than ever.

Beginning in the late 90s, North Macedonia was the first of its former Yugoslav brothers to shake hands with the West, sealing a NATO membership action plan in ’99 and an EU stabilisation and association agreement in 2001.

By 2005, buoyed by its newfound status as a candidate country, North Macedonia appeared on the cusp of securing NATO membership. However, its ambitions hit a snag. At the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, Greece exercised its veto power, citing concerns that Macedonia’s erstwhile name harbored latent territorial claims over its own northern province, also named Macedonia.

Then, when the European Commission gave the thumbs up for membership talks in 2009, the old Greek name game reared its head again. 

In the ensuing decade, the political stage was dominated by a heady mix of politicking and populist fire, where the stubbornness of Nikola Gruevski’s nationalism in the country clashed head-on with a revolving door of equally unyielding Greek governments.

Despite the United Nations playing mediator, progress was sluggish, with few tangible results achieved over the years. 

The political landscape in Greece underwent a significant change with the rise of Alexis Tsipras, while North Macedonia experienced an equally notable political upheaval in 2017 that paved the way for Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. A year later, these two leaders would come together at Lake Prespa.

“The then socialist governments, with PM Zaev and Syriza’s Tsipras at the helm, managed to reach something of a diplomatic coup,” observes Matjaž Nemec, a Slovenian S&D MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Committee for Foreign Affairs. He points out that the Prespa Agreement – as it’s been dubbed – was pivotal for the Western Balkans. The landmark deal served as an example in untangling the web of issues that had long ensnared countries in the region, addressing concerns on both a bilateral and multilateral basis.

“Crucially, after the agreement was signed, Greece has consistently refrained from readdressing or contesting matters concerning North Macedonia’s name or its path to accession in any EU institutional fora.” 

Post-2018, a new obstacle emerged due to disagreements over history with another EU member state, Bulgaria. Its insistence on addressing perceived “anti-Bulgarian ideology” in North Macedonia threatened to impede the latter’s EU accession process.

“As the Bulgarian issue gained more tangible prominence in 2019, and particularly in 2021, it brought into question the very agreement itself, rendering Bulgaria’s actions akin to a double-edged sword. This strategy effectively escalated a domestic political issue to a matter of international, or more precisely, European importance, elevating it to a dispute between two nations.”

Although some Bulgarians had previously expressed these concerns, their assertions were relatively minimal, and, for Nemec, it’s “incomprehensible” that Bulgaria hadn’t raised these issues at least concurrently when Greece had.

It nearly seemed like a replay of the Greek saga, but the EU had been roused by an outbreak of a war on its periphery. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western Europe’s appetite for enlargement revived as it sought to secure its values and its borders.

Incidentally, it would be the French under president Emmanuel Macron, that offered the Macedonians a way out of their stalemate. The so-called ‘French Proposal’ introduced a framework that mandated the country acknowledge the Bulgarian community within its own constitution, and the Sobranie, North Macedonia’s parliament, only tentatively voted it through, considering the minuscule census count of some three thousand citizens identifying as Bulgarian. 

As a shadow rapporteur on the 2022 Commission report on North Macedonia, Nemec played a significant role in overseeing and contributing to the European Parliament’s evaluation of the country’s progress towards EU membership.

“We were faced with the fact that a report on a candidate state was not adopted, primarily because it had been overly influenced by a bilateral or Bulgarian agenda.” 

He explained that as Skopje was trying to wrangle the necessary number of votes needed to change the country’s constitution, negotiations between the different political groups for a resolution on the report were underway in the European Parliament. The S&D, Greens and the Left political groups voiced their disagreement over the proposed text and the rapporteur, coming from the ranks of Renew, was subsequently forced to withdraw the progress report. 

Nemec explained their strategy aimed to moderate the Bulgarian influence on the resolution. “We wanted to slightly temper or limit the process, believing that adopting a resolution aligned with the Bulgarian stance might have implications on the North Macedonian negotiations regarding the essential constitutional amendment.”

He candidly acknowledged the limitations of steering such an affair, admitting that “no one can control the entire process, not even the two or three biggest political groups.” 

Despite the shared goal among North Macedonia’s political factions for EU membership, Nemec expressed concern over the diminishing allure of the European story ― not just in North Macedonia but across the EU, as well. He cautioned that should the EU fail to promptly respond to the aspirations of the Western Balkans, they could drift towards other regional or global influences. “These changes might result in alliances that are either misaligned or even anti-European.” 

North Macedonia’s European path has been marred by tense relations with its neighbours and an EU that seemed stuck on the precipice at the end of history, overconfident of its economic relationship with Russia and the carrot it perpetually dangled over the Western Balkan states. The promise of membership always there but never quite in reach. 

With all the country has sacrificed, North Macedonia stands out among the now enlarged pool of candidates. But the path ahead is muddied by a crucial election that could sidetrack the EU’s reemergent vim. EU-wide elections in June risk diverting focus to more inward-looking concerns as the far-right parties lead in the polls. Inflation, the energy crunch, escalating living costs, security crises, migration, healthcare, and climate change are poised to amplify public apprehensions, creating an ideal breeding ground for populist rhetoric.

The common advice to candidate countries by the EU is to “do your homework.” But if the school is in disarray, what’s the use?